


The Horror was for Love

by Sombraline



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Captive Prince Week 2017, Death of Character, Gen, Hurt with a tiny bit of comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sapphires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sombraline/pseuds/Sombraline
Summary: Nicaise... Nicaise thought he was too proud to scream and beg and cry, but it turned out he wasn't.





	The Horror was for Love

**Author's Note:**

> Proud to have written a little something for this Captive Prince week, on the first theme -"Sapphires". Sorry for the feels. It's CS Pacat's fault. 
> 
> Title is taken from Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak: “The horror was for love. The things we do for love like this are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. This love burns you, maims you, twists you inside out. It is a monstrous love, and it makes monsters of us all.”

Nicaise thought he was too proud to scream and beg and cry, but it turned out he wasn't. 

Distantly, he thought that it was so very unfair, that the man who had made him this brave and daring and important, that the man who had made his life like this, who had taught him that to cry was to be weak and ugly and that he could be so much more than that-

That that man was the one who would push him to such abject terror that he was nothing anymore, not clever or brave or daring, not himself, or whatever he had been before, whatever he was underneath his skills.

There was no pride or bravado, no biting words or noble resignation to be had there. Nicaise didn't want to die. He kicked and trashed and struggled, terrified and alone. He had never been in this part of the castle. It was dark and damp and the walls were all dirty stones and he heard his high-pitched voice echo in the halls, but somehow he knew, just knew, nobody heard, nobody would come.

“LAURENT!” He cried, with tears rolling down on his cheeks and his nose clogged and his vision blurry. “PLEASE! PLEAAASE!”

The guards didn't acknowledge him, and that was almost worst. The guards could have commented that he was cute, they could have tried to take advantage, they could have threatened or mocked, and to those things maybe Nicaise could have found answers in his training and his defenses. But they treated him like a dead object already, and the child had nothing in him but the terrified refusal of being made that.

But here he was. With that truth, that awful certainty that he had been right to have his doubts, that he had been right to think that Laurent had been right, only he had not been right to think for a single instant that the Regent actually liked him and that he could speak to him and plead with him, that he could make him leave Laurent alone.

He had nobody. He was nobody. He was just a toy the Regent didn't want anymore. Like Laurent had said he would be. But Laurent wasn't here now, like he had said he would be. Nobody was here to take pity on an used pet. 

“P-P-PLEASE! D-don't, don't do this, please!” 

His knees were kicked apart and hit the ground floor, hard. One soldier held his ankles down, another pulled his wrists away from his face and forced them on the floor too, and then his neck was forced against wood, so hard he couldn't breath. He closed his eyes tight, like it could help. 

In the second before he died, Nicaise thought of Laurent, and he thought he missed him, and he had been wrong, and he wondered if Laurent would have been braver, in this instant. He thought, please be alright, Laurent, please-

...I'll miss you. 

Then he thought he felt... Arms, around him. It was silly, because he knew he was restrained by cruel hands, but he thought he felt warm arms, not possessive like the Regent's, more soft. It woke distant memories of-

“Mother?” He asked shakily. He didn't hear his own voice.

“All is well,” said a voice, and for a second he thought it was Laurent's, and he thought he was saved. But the words were deeper and they had a lighter intonation than he had ever heard it, more open and vulnerable, so unlike the prince he knew. But- “All is well,” he said. “Let it happen. It will be fine. You deserve to rest.” 

He felt... pain. On the back of his neck. He whimpered and his fingers tightened on the arms around him. He saw a pale hand and a blue sleeve holding back. He tried to remember if Laurent had ever spoken of Auguste to him. He knew he had been rude, asking if the stories were true. His thoughts were blurry. He didn't remember.

“I,” he started without knowing what he was going to say.

“Thank you, Nicaise,” the Prince said gently. “You were very brave, and I thank you. Now rest. Everything will be well.”

He closed his eyes. He cried one last tear for himself and let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
